The economy of Silver City has relied mostly on the mining industry and on the presence of
Western New Mexico University for most of its history. Today, those two components are still a big force in the economy, but it is a little more diversified now. Silver City is located close to the Gila Wilderness, which was the first federally designated wilderness in the country. There are plenty of opportunities for hiking, fishing and camping in the Gila Wilderness. Also in the area is Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, which are located at the northern end of
State Highway 15, which is a very slow, twisting mountain road. Silver City also has a nearly completely intact and very historic downtown area with most of the buildings dating from the 1800s or early 1900s. The downtown area of Silver City is one of my favorite downtown areas anywhere! Now this is not the adobe construction you might expect to find in a small
New Mexico town. Adobe is an anomaly around here. The principal downtown street is
Bullard Street, but it was originally Main Street, one block to the east. You see, Main Street
disappeared in a flash flood in 1896. Several more floods in the next decade carved the newly created canyon even deeper. Now it is a greenbelt called Big Ditch Park and the canyon is 55 feet deep and the series of floods washed it down to bedrock. There are buildings lining the
west side of Big Ditch Park that once lined Main Street and they have elaborate front entrances that now face a greenbelt park. When the town plat for Silver City was first drawn up, it was laid out directly in the path of storm water runoff and Main Street wound up paying the ultimate price for the bad design. There are still about four blocks of Main Street left, north of the downtown area. It begins at 14th Street and then dead-ends at approximately the point where it once would have intersected with 10th Street. A glance at an aerial map will show a straight stretch of San Vicente Arroyo going past the downtown area. This was once
Main Street.
